Introduction to Autonomous Robots: Mechanisms, Sensors, Actuators, and Algorithms

A textbooks that provide a broad algorithmic perspective on the mechanics and dynamics of robots, offers a much-needed resource for the computational fundamentals behind the design and control of autonomous robots. It covers principles of robot motion, forward and inverse kinematics of robotic arms and simple wheeled platforms, perception, error propagation, localization and simultaneous localization and mapping.

The authors use a class-tested and accessible approach to present progressive, step-by-step development concepts, alongside a wide range of real-world examples and fundamental concepts in mechanisms, sensing and actuation, computation, and uncertainty. Throughout, the authors balance the impact of hardware (mechanism, sensor, actuator) and software (algorithms) in teaching robot autonomy.

This book is open source, open to contributions, and released under a creative common license.